


I can ride a bike with no handlebars

by anonissue, Bozaloshtsh



Category: Goon (2011)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-12-23
Updated: 2012-12-23
Packaged: 2017-11-22 02:35:41
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,975
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/604864
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/anonissue/pseuds/anonissue, https://archiveofourown.org/users/Bozaloshtsh/pseuds/Bozaloshtsh
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It's easy enough for Gord to get up every morning, but it's not quite so easy for him to keep going with the love that ruined his life.</p>
            </blockquote>





	I can ride a bike with no handlebars

**Author's Note:**

  * For [mazily](https://archiveofourown.org/users/mazily/gifts).



One November night, after practice --

\-- and oh it was a bad _fucking_ practice, alright, because Frenchie had it in his head that a few of the girls from the 'Stache could stand rink-side all night and simper and cheer, and for the love of God and country, Xavier wouldn't take off his Ray Bans no matter how purple Ronnie's face got from screaming at him, and it was actually kind of funny until it really, really wasn't anymore, and Gord had to go take a few sips of his "coffee" at shift change --

\-- well. At any rate, one night, after practice, Ronnie decides to wait until everyone (except Johnny, Johnny was his ride home after all) manages to slink off home, corners Gord in the hallway alone, and actually tries to have a conversation with him about his drinking.

"Being a captain is like being a parent, Gordy. If you fucking can't keep your shit together, how do you expect the rest of these boys to take it alright?" It was Ronnie's exhaustion that hurt more than anything. The rest he's already heard from Martha, Martha's sister, Martha's mother, in a non-stop, unending litany since he'd managed to miss the delivery of his baby girl seven years ago upended in a snowbank outside of Albany after a game (predictably shitfaced).

He doesn't take Ronnie's intervention well; in fact, he storms, stumbling, into the fucking benches by his locker and tears off the Cs from all his sweaters, and that was just going to be fucking that, have Johnny drive him home now, and tell him not to come get him in the morning.

Johnny follows the noise, looks at the mess of torn thread, helps him across the ice to his car, gets him onto his couch at home, and makes sure all the lights are off inside before letting himself back out.

In the morning, with the grey spilling across the sky and a headache as black as thunder, still half drunk, Gord sits on his couch in his underwear until Johnny shows up knocking on his door -- smiling like Gord had promised him ice cream for his fucking birthday -- and Gord can't help but get in the car and go to morning practice.

And of course, all his hockey sweaters have the Cs sown back on them all crooked and piss-poor, and they're all hanging up again perfectly arranged inside his locker.

He stares at Johnny a good long while, who pretends not to notice Gord's eyes on him and instead focuses on his gear as he strips down and suits up for practice.

 

*

 

Gord dreams tonight. It's odd, because Gord hasn't dreamed since the last time he went to bed stark sober. But he does, and it goes like this:

There's a horse on the ice rink, and it's not the one in Halifax, but the one in Okanagan -- even though it's not the one, it's outside, and he knows he's in America, but it _is_ Okanagan -- and it can't stop slipping to save it's life.

On top of it is a legless knight in actual fucking armor with one of those lances, except the lance looks more like a corndog, and he's flailing about almost as much as his horse. He has a team, around him, and everyone's trying to go over to him and help him -- it seems incredibly important to help him -- but they're all swallowed by the rink up to their ankles. Gord's got his skates on though, but as soon as he gets close enough to the horse, the horse falls through the ice and down the knight is drowning in the lake under the rink. But Gord knows he has to go after him. He needs to make sure this kid survives. He grabs on to that corndog lance and tries to pull him out but in one swift teeter, Gord's falling into the ice water face first and --

wakes up in the bathtub, coughing, knocking a can of beer over onto the floor. The water around him is cold, and Gordy's so immediately thankful he woke up before drowning he forgets the dream within minutes.

 

*

 

It's later on that week that Gord's standing outside the door of his two-family home with a suitcase and a garbage bag full of his shit, sipping away on his "coffee." It's not really a shock that Martha's throwing him out. He figured that might be what was going on when she sent Meghan to her grandmother's for the week without discussing it with him first. It's what she said. He thought it'd been his drinking.

"The drinking just makes you pathetic, but I'm done with the hockey. I'm done. I'm tired of the hockey. It's the only thing you're halfway sober for anymore. Not your daughter's birthday party --" Gord hadn't been sober for that because Martha had been half-way down some cocksucking home improvement construction guy's throat all afternoon, but "-- not our anniversary, not even Sunday fucking dinner, Gordy. I want that time with you, your daughter deserves that time with you, and you give it to your goddamn Highlanders. So go, eh. Have them feed you, and cherish you, and house you, because it's clear to everyone in this house what it is you love, and it's not the people in it."

He hadn't wanted to call anyone at the time, but Johnny found him at the 'Stache, bags and all, because he'd missed practice and Martha had thrown a potted plant at him and screamed "fag" when he'd come around to pick him up. Johnny was upset, he could tell.

"You mean to tell me you're not a.... homosapien? Anymore?" Gord slurred out.

"Homosexual."

"Fucking whatever, man."

"You're just not my type," Johnny laughed.

"Well go fuck yourself, then." He found himself somehow profoundly hurt, and Johnny's smile disappears this time when he goes to pat Gord on the head.

 

*

 

Glatt shows up. One game after Glatt, he feels the need to ask him, seven or so shots in, "Do you like corndogs, man?"

"Oh my gosh, I love corndogs! How did you know?" Glatt lights up like a fucking Christmas tree and Johnny blushes beat red. Gordy snorts up the beer he just took his first sip of and chalks it up to a lucky guess.

"You'll fucking adore this place man, $7 for a bucket of them," he tells the rookie and the kid orders three of them. Images of drowning knights flash through Gordy's mind but are gone before he has a real chance to remember them. But he knows this: he likes the new kid. Maybe he can straighten out Xavier, maybe not, but there's something undeniably vital about him. Gord's happy he's here.

 

*

 

"Well, we're down by two, but that's not so bad if you think about it long enough --" Gord shouts, in between second and third period.

"It's not so bad guys!" Johnny chimes in.

"We could be down by two, with $500,000 in off-books gambling debt with some hard-ass Mickeys threatening to chop off our dicks for Sunday lunch!"

"Who wants their dick chopped off?" Johnny chirps. "Not me!"

"We could be down by two, in a fucking shark tank where all the sharks have lasers attached to their fucking foreheads!"

"Sharks with _fucking lasers_!" Johnny screams right next to Belchie's ear.

Belchier takes a swing and misses, but still manages to mutter, "Shut the fuck up, pencil dick. Sharks with fucking lasers, he's higher than I am."

"Oh come on Marco, stop missing the fucking point. It could be worse. We need to rally together, and go back out there, and fight like it's the fucking apocalypse, and this hockey game is the gateway to the kingdom of heaven."

"The devil can suck it!" Johnny choruses.

The buzzer sounds, and Gord deflates because he's lost everyone's attention now, save for Johnny, and, surprisingly Glatt, who's staring at him with rapt attention. And Glatt goes back out there and shows the poor son of a bitch Steeler's defensemen who had the misfortune of laying Kim out what it's like to get hit by a hammer. Gordy reflects once again that he's really happy Glatt's here.

*

 

And slowly, things start to change. Gord's not really sure how or when it started. But before you know it, everyone's actually fucking showing up to 5 am pre-game practices. Glatt's fishing some half-retarded drawing of a wolf from his bags and passing it around. And instead of the comments and the vandalism, it's just comments and everyone's actually treating his property like it's something they should respect. Tweedle Dee and Tweedle Dum are even laying off Belchie a little more than usual, Kim's spending less time ass-deep his his MCAT books, Xavier... is still his coked-out trainwreck self, but Gord knew he'd take some serious time.

But there's a tension in the air. People seem to want to be here again instead of chained to the ruin of their hockey careers. Gord doesn't want to hope, because hope's led to bad places, bad choices, a shot career, a shot youth, and a marriage that's falling apart, but something's different now that Glatt's here.

They're stuffing their gear bags and tossing them in front of the coach bus, when Gord spots Ronnie out front of the bus talking to the driver while smoking a butt -- next year's draft picks. Ronnie raises his eyebrows in acknowledgement as Gord lumbers across the parking lot, winging his "coffee" cup at the nearest rubbish bin and missing it catastrophically. "What can I do for ya, Gordy?"

"Can't say really, but I think we may win this one today." It's just a feeling, Gordy's the first to admit it's not a sure thing at all, but things are _different_.

"Is that so," Ronnie says, smoke clouding his face as his cig self-ashes onto the tops of his loafers.

"Feels different, but I can't say really," Gord shrugs, and ambles back to where Johnny is as per usual loading the bus up with everyone else's shit. He ignores Ronnie's stare as he climbs into the bus and prays for the first time in a while that he's not wrong.

 

*

 

Gord is wrong. They lose. Glatt makes a rookie mistake, Ronnie over-reacts, and that's all the reenforcement Xavier needs to play like an asshole, and they lose. And Ronnie loses his goddamn mind. Gordy just watches him, silent, wishing he hadn't been so hasty to throw out his cup this morning, as he throws a tantrum and lays into Glatt -- who looks utterly heart-broken. He's a heartbeat away from redirecting Ronnie's wrath at himself when Xavier manages to give Ronnie a new target all on his fucking own.

But something is still different. Ronnie hasn't gotten this upset over a loss in a really long time. Hasn't tossed the equipment, pulled at his hair, really taken it personal like this in a really long time. Gord feels a little guilty, but he can tell the rest of the team, too, is actually upset they lost.

And when Glatt gets down on both knees and uses his dress shirt to wipe off Xavier's spit from the Highlander emblem on the floor, it almost feels like a revolution. Things _are_ different, Gord wasn't wrong about that.

 

*

And then it happens. Dougie screens well enough that they get a puck in against the Lords, and Belchie remembers how to fucking glove a puck. They win. They win, and Martha calls him that night to finalize the divorce. In the voicemail she left him, he can hear their game on TV in the background.

He calls them back at least ten times, Johnny sitting next to him at the 'Stache making sure his whisky glass stays full and taking the phone from him before he's idiot enough to leave the eleventh message imploring his wife and daughter not to give up on him. Glatt even tries to impart some advice on him.

"The people who actually love you always stick around. My brother still calls me every week, even though he's gay and he has gay people problems, he lets me know he cares. He lets me know he misses me. If you spend your whole life trying to love someone who doesn't love you back, you die a little bit on the inside," and Doug's so wrapped up in telling him this stuff he doesn't even notice Evengi writing and taping a sign to his back saying 'my name is glatt, ask me if my come is kosher.' "And I like you Gordy, I don't want parts of you on the inside to die."

Gord wants to reply to him, but the black dots that started off in the corners of his vision are now swirling around the middle and the next thing he remembers is the view of the floor after Glatt tosses him over his shoulder like a sack of potatoes and makes a beeline for Johnny's car.

 

*

 

Martha wants half his property, she's entitled to it. But she wants child support without visitation, and for the first time in a while, Gord gets mad.

It's afternoon practice when it comes to a head -- and afterwards, he can't even remember what stupid shitstick answer of Glatt's set him off, but he does what no captain should ever do: he tears down his family.

"If it's too fucking hard for you to understand how to skate ten fucking feet, maybe you should go back to cleaning up after drunken 14 year-olds, eh Dougie?" Gord bites out, and it's worse somehow, knowing that the last time he had a sip of whiskey was six hours ago.

"C'mon, Gordy, give him a break, it was a bad pass anyway --" Oleg tries, despite Evengi putting a hand on his shoulder and muttering something that looks close enough to 'leave it alone' in Russian.

"Shot by your half-retarded brother, yeah, it was. Maybe if the two of you double-teamed your marks as well as you double-team Belchie's mother we'd be fighting for the sixth play-off spot, not the eighth." Gord knows the sneer is fighting its way onto his face despite his best efforts.

"Gordy --" Johnny manages to get out, before the look on Gord's face gets really ugly and Gord knows it's past time for him to get off the ice and go hit the showers. He doesn't need to take a look at Ronnie's stone-faced disapproval stabbing at him from behind the goalie's cage to know it. He skates off hoping Johnny doesn't follow him off-ice.

He walks into the locker room, tosses off his helmet, and is about to throw his stick on the floor when he hears another:

"Gordy," from behind him, and Gord decides to throw it at the sound of Johnny's voice instead.

Johnny ducks his stick with grace, and looks like he's going to say something again so Gord cuts him off instead.

"You're half the reason I'm in this mess in the fucking first place, man. No means no, can't you learn to take a fucking hint when someone's walking away from you?"

"You've had one foot out the door since the first day you met me, Gordy." Johnny laughs. And he's right, Gord can't debate that. Johnny joined the team from the Major Juniors, drafted and farmed out, seven years ago. Right before his daughter had been born. Right before Gord's drinking _really_ picked-up. Right after Gord knocked three teeth off the Edmonton asshole who'd tossed an elbow at Johnny's ear, and Johnny had gone on to score three more points, winning the game 6-2. Right after the celebration that night, and Johnny had been really drunk, and really happy, and --

"I needed to quit hockey, Johnny. To save my marriage. Why didn't you just leave me the fuck alone," Gord says, slumping down onto the bench. It's not even a question really, but Johnny sighs, picks up Gord's discarded helment and fits it back onto Gord's head, his fingers brushing Gord's forehead.

"The team needed you. The team still needs you. We're the family you gave up having a wife for, and I'm not letting you walk out on us too." Johnny shrugs, and Gord wishes it was as simple as that.

 

*

The look on Xavier's face, Rhea laid out on the ice -- it's anticipatory. It's the same face on the kid who checks his closet and under his bed waiting to see if the boogieman's going to pop out and eat them. And Rhea stays down. Gord watches Xavier get it, finally. Get that he's going to be OK, and that he has the freedom and the permission to love the game back in his own two hands. And finally, when he plays third period that night, everyone gets a glimpse at what made him the 18 year-old prospect he once was.

Xavier skating free seems like the last piece. Gord knows how this team works now, understands its ebbs and flows, knows who has to get kicked around and for what. And he remembers when it was like that with other relationships in his life. The one he used to have with his wife. The one he may one day get to have with his daughter, now that Martha's relenting a little about the visitation.

Before they head back home, Gordy finds the perfect gift for Glatt, and the boys all chip in -- it's a stuffed toy of a night in armor holding a lance (which the team customizes, of course). They give him a tam 'o shanter because he belongs to the Highlanders now, and someone (probably Evengi) writes 'Xavier's cock' on the lance. But Glatt knows his place now, and so does Gordy.

And it feels a little bit like having a home.


End file.
